theblackopsfandomcom-20200214-history
Oprah
Overview Oprah Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an African American talk show host, philantropist, actress, and producer. She is most reknown for her television talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, and according to some assessments, she could very well be the most influential woman in the world. African American Children Don't Value Education! In January 2007 Oprah launched an all girls school called the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls '''in Henley on Klip near Meyerton, south of Johannesburg, South Africa. Inspired by her own destitute upbringing, Oprah had decided to dedicate the school to offer education and leadership opportunities to girls with impoverished backgrounds. However, On January 11, 2007 Oprah launched a controversial statement, regarding her apathy towards aiding poor African American city schools versus the schools in Africa: ''"Say what you will about the American educational system — it does work. ... If you are a child in the United States, you can get an education. ... I became so frustrated with visiting inner-city schools that I just stopped going. The sense that you need to learn just isn't there. ... If you ask the kids what they want or need, they will say an iPod, sneakers, or some money. In South Africa, they don't ask for money or toys. They ask for uniforms so they can go to school." '' ''— Oprah, who randomly gives away hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of gifts to her mostly white middle class female audience members on her talk show, but not poor inner city children who want toys.'' Criticism with Oprah's statement is not aimed at her endeavor to aid African children, but that she needed to launch an attack on inner city children in order to justify her intentions. Criticism focuses largely on her ignorance of statistical data, where blacks are more likely than whites to cite that education is the key to success. But what is even more startling is that Oprah feigns ignorance to a problem within inner city schools, when she launched an episode on April 11, 2006 called "Schools in Crisis", where she swaps privileged white suburban children in Illinois with their black inner city counterparts living 35 miles away. Ironically, the point of the episode was to show people that the educational system in America does not "work", especially not towards making black inner city students competitive for colleges. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgvpRoAn-ro&feature=related According to statistical evidence, New York, which contains 10-11% of the entire African American population according to the U.S. census reports that 75% of black children do not have a college ready education, which means possibly 1 in 10 blacks will lack the preparedness to go to college. The city of Detroit, which contains 4% of the entire African American population has already proposed a law that will place 60 students to a class, to manage the city's budget. So although you can technically get an education in America, that does not mean blacks will necessarily get one that is good enough to break the cycle of poverty in thier communities. The Irony Continues "Winfrey might have known that news of her students' swank surroundings might not wash with American critics, who don't bat an eye at white hotel heiresses dancing on banquettes, or reality shows about sweet-16 parties at budgets that could build a home for a Katrina victim. But impoverished black girls sleeping on nice-ish sheets? That didn't go over so well. The affronted sense that these girls deserved only bare-minimum accommodations and that a private citizen's money should have been used to educating them in bulk rather than in gracious individual style reflects our own beliefs that the bare minimum is all poor (black) girls need." '''— Rebecca Traister of Salon.com, giving Oprah too much credit for logic she applies to Africans, but doesn't actually apply to the poor inner city children in her own country.